I can't imagine that this is the first time somebody has put a vegetative patient into an MRI. Does anybody know what makes this time different? Are they using a new imaging technique, or is the patient perhaps in a different (previously undiscovered?) state from other "vegetative" patients?
Edit:
Hitting up wikipedia to refresh on the terminology and delimitation of different states, I found this:
> "In 1983, Rom Houben survived a near-fatal car crash and was diagnosed as being in a vegetative state. Twenty-three years later, using "modern brain imaging techniques and equipment", doctors revised his diagnosis to locked-in syndrome.[26] [... interesting stuff about facilitated communication, and how it is bullshit ...] Houben's case had been thought to call into question the current methods of diagnosing vegetative state and arguments against withholding care from such patients.[26][32][33]"
Edit:
Hitting up wikipedia to refresh on the terminology and delimitation of different states, I found this:
> "In 1983, Rom Houben survived a near-fatal car crash and was diagnosed as being in a vegetative state. Twenty-three years later, using "modern brain imaging techniques and equipment", doctors revised his diagnosis to locked-in syndrome.[26] [... interesting stuff about facilitated communication, and how it is bullshit ...] Houben's case had been thought to call into question the current methods of diagnosing vegetative state and arguments against withholding care from such patients.[26][32][33]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-in_syndrome#Rom_Houben
Seems potentially similar, but from three decades ago.